Advertising blog tasks

Read ‘Marketing Marmite in the Postmodern age’ in MM54  (p62). You'll find our Media Magazine archive here - remember you'll need your Greenford Google login to access. You may also want to re-watch the Marmite Gene Project advert above.

Answer the following questions on your blog:

1) How does the Marmite Gene Project advert use narrative? Apply some narrative theories here.

Todorov's equilibrium theory: disequilibrium - showing that Marmite solves that disequilibrium which then turns into the new equilibrium.

2) What persuasive techniques are used by the Marmite advert?

Slogan, emotional appeal, repetition.

3) Focusing specifically on the Media Magazine article, what does John Berger suggest about advertising in ‘Ways of Seeing’?

"All publicity works on anxiety."

4) What is it psychologists refer to as referencing? Which persuasive techniques could you link this idea to?

The spectator-buyer is meant to envy themselves as they will become if they buys the product. They are meant to imagine themselves transformed by the product into an object of envy for others.

This is an emotional appeal persuasive technique.

5) How has Marmite marketing used intertextuality? Which of the persuasive techniques we’ve learned can this be linked to?

Intertextuality is when one media product references another one. For Marmite, their 2003 as features Zippy From the children's television programme Rainbow, and their 2007 campaign featured the 1970's cartoon character Paddington Bear. 

It can be the emotional appeal persuasive technique, since they incorporate a sense of nostalgia to the audience.

6) What is the difference between popular culture and high culture? How does Marmite play on this?

High culture can be defined as a subculture that's shared by the upper class of the society, while popular culture can be defined as a subculture that's shared by the mass of the society.

Marmite does this by juxtapositioning popular culture with high culture by using the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, while replacing the crown with breadsticks, and the unicorn and lion with the Queen's corgi dogs; this is referencing high culture. On the other hand, Marmite uses popular culture by including their quote "One either loves it or hates it". The motto with the Queen's idiosyncratic speech shows how marmite used juxtaposition in their advert. 

7) Why does Marmite position the audience as ‘enlightened, superior, knowing insiders’?

Enlightened: Because postmodern audiences arguably understand hat they're being manipulated by marketing. 

Knowing insiders: They understand the conventions that are being deployed and satirised. 

Superior: These postmodern consumers are simultaneously aware that they're being exploited, yet also prepared to play the game if it brings them a sense of superiority and social cache.

8) What examples does the writer provide of why Marmite advertising is a good example of postmodernism?

The #Marmiteneglectcampaign is rooted in the ‘reality’ that jars of Marmite often remain unused in the backs of cupboards. This ‘real-life concern’ is then positioned within a narrative of social neglect, and exploits the conventions of misery-memoirs.